Pasha The Service Pup!

All things Pasha! We will be recording his progress as a service puppy here for as long as possible!

[archiemcphee]

The Department of Awesomely Good Deeds invites you donate any plush toys you no longer need to an outrageously cute and meaningful campaign by a Japanese organization called Second Life Toys. Their goal is to draw attention to the vital importance of organ donation, which doesn’t get a lot of press in Japan, despite some 14,000 people on organ transplant waiting lists.

To do this Second Life Toys takes unwanted toys and uses them to repair each other. Toy donors receive a letter from the recipient toy explaining how the donation improved their lives.

Click here to learn more and to donate to the campaign.

[via Bored Panda]

[darlingtonbubbles]

Just wanted to share this lovely post I found on Facebook. Think people. Think of who you’re really hurting.

[pasha-bear-blog]

Been a bit slow here, but feel free to follow us on Instagram @KayandPasha

[twoterribleterriers]

Dogblrs!

If your blog is at least 90% or so Canine content, please like or reblog so I can follow you! I want to expand my dash. :D

[mygermanshepherd]

Pretty much all German shepherd stuff

[pasha-bear-blog]

Very proud of PASHA this past weekend! He's been going out more regularly thanks to the cooler weather and has done tremendously while working. Even when a woman in a motorized cart sat and talked to him for a good 3 to 5 minutes he just laid down and wagged his tail while waiting for us to be done picking up some fresh veggies for dinner. Very happy with his training so far.

[morbidology]

Disabled Air Force Veteran, Clay Luthy, was having a difficult time finding a job. The reason he was having a hard time was because he needed to be accompanied by his service dog, Charlotte. Luthy went for a job interview in Lowe’s and when he arrived, he brought Charlotte along with him. Two weeks later, Lowe’s offered him the job and Charlotte accompanies him daily.

[pasha-bear-blog]

Pasha's new coat!!

[siberianintraining]

Hello! I’m new to dogblr and was wondering if anyone could reblog this post to promo me? I’m a 16 y/o trans guy with a bunch of mental illnesses and I’m using this blog to hold references for when I (hopefully) get a psychiatric service dog in the future. 

Also if you post about service dogs (especially PSDs) please reblog! I need more blogs to follow.

[myservicedogadventure-deactivat]

Hate Vs Triggers

I hate my US Senator. Everything he says makes me angrier and I actively avoid any mention of this name.

But I am not triggered by my senator.

I have no particular animosity towards The Beatles. However, whenever I hear them my C-PTSD is triggered and I experience an emotional flashback. I feel very small and helpless. I can’t focus and sometimes I even start to cry.

I am triggered by The Beatles.

Triggers cause a chronic health condition to get worse. These include depression and anxiety but also allergies, pain disorders, asthma. Triggers cause pain.

Most people mock mental health triggers in particular. And yes, I am triggered by very ordinary things like 70′s music, shamrocks, football, and the question “What would you like to eat for dinner?”

The fact that some triggers are ordinary does not make them funny. The fact that some triggers are ordinary make them terrifying.

If you have never been triggered, do not make fun of those of us who have. Instead, get down on your knees and praise whatever deity you believe in that you are healthy and whole.

[tub-o-lard]

I haven’t really been able to understand this whole trigger thing. So something that causes terrible anxiety (pretty often near panic attacks) and horrible feelings and emotions of that caliber are triggers?

[myservicedogadventure-deactivat]

Anything that causes a chronic illness to flare up is a trigger. In the case of mental illnesses, this is like triggering a flashback for PTSD, a depressive spiral for depression, a panic attack for a panic disorder. If you don’t have an illness, you can’t be triggered.

[pasha-bear-blog]

I'm totally here for the education of others on this whole trigger thing. I'm glad people are starting to come to an understanding about it, I too have noticed some confusion about the term and am very happy to see someone has found a way to explain it so well.

[myservicedogadventure-deactivat]

Re: your fake service dog post: if service dog equipment isn't sold online, where could we get it?

Service dog gear should still be available online, but only through sources that require more than a credit card. There is no reason at all service dog gear should be sold via ebay, amazon, or sites that pitch specifically to pet owners.

Buying directly through programs would be another good solution. Even owner trainers would be able to get gear this way but would have to provide actual evidence that they have a service dog.

Even a requirement that websites ask the two legal questions would be a vast improvement.

[pasha-bear-blog]

I was pretty worried about Pasha and his future potential as a SD thanks to an incident at the hospital the other day. Usually, I would not have brought Pasha to a place such as a hospital when I’m still not 100% confident in his SD training, but due to an emergency, it couldn’t be helped.

Anyway, Whether or not he should have been there is beside the point, as he proved beyond a doubt that he SHOULD have been there... By doing the exact thing I was terrified he would do.

See, Pasha has been an absolute doll about meeting people and loving to say hi and visiting blah blah blah, but I was worried that he would have some problems with the Doctors and staff coming in the hospital room. He was just fine at first, but the longer we stayed, I started noticing he would pace and whine and just generally wouldn’t sit still. This is something I was hoping would just be a “I have to potty” signal and therefore I took him outside to do his business.. He did not have to use the bathroom.

I feel that I should mention that I do not like hospitals. I have bad anxiety when it comes to actual hospitals and emergency rooms, and we had to be in both thanks to one of my friends having a mental break and feeling suicidal. I was the one that was able to bring her to the hospital, and had just so happened to be working on Pasha’s training all day. I was tired, he was tired, and the “hurry up and wait” game was getting to me, all while I was worried about Pasha and his possible misbehavior.

Then it happened. 

After my ignoring his whining, and ignoring his pawing and restlessness for nearly ten minutes, Pasha then did the one thing I couldn’t ignore. He started barking at the doctor. 

This, obviously was something I had to react to immediately. Without hesitation I removed him (and thus myself) from the area, and the moment we were out in the waiting room and even more noticeably out the door, he was once again back to his happy-go-lucky I love people self. 

Turns out, the entire time he had been signaling for me to leave the hospital room and get out of an anxiety inducing situation and when he realized I ignored him, he then was able to work out that he had to do something “really bad” in order for me to pay attention.

While I sincerely hope it doesn’t become a habit for him to start barking at people in order for me to pay attention, I am very proud of him for not giving up on me and finally doing something to get me to understand that we had to leave the area. He was doing his job all along, I just wasn’t listening.

[pasha-bear-blog]

Pasha has for the first time ever interupted a depression-induced thought process without provocation or the allure of a treat! Giving him lpts of praise and "good boys" when he responds by licking my hand wjen prompted during these times has helped tremendously

[pasha-bear-blog]

Pasha has had a very long day and is ready to go home now

[pasha-bear-blog]

Pasha at the hospital while we wait for the staff to call us to a room

[vampirebeverage]

psa

no one fucking tells you this so here it is:

when signing out forms to apply for disability / filling out a form for diagnosis

you’re supposed to fill it out as you on your worst days

like, I filled out forms that said I could do most things usually

like, my doctor added in the conditions like “yeah, they can feed themselves when not stressed” “they can do this when not stressed”

but how I should have filled it out was more like

“some days I can’t feed myself” “some days I can’t leave the house”

My doctor didn’t even know this, but I talked to someone who had worked with people with both developmental and intellectual disabilities for a number of years, and she told me to write down how it is for your bad days

this should be a thing they tell you, but it isn’t

part of the reason I didn’t get my autism diagnosis as soon as I should have is because I filled out forms wrong!

[thatbutchbitch-moved-deactivate]

Seriously guys, this is how I got my Metro Mobility (a transportation service in the area) approved.

[votedami]

The thing I hate most about depression is that it tricks you into thinking you don’t have depression. It makes you think that nothing is wrong with you, that you just feel this way because you lack value as a person. Whether that’s in your relationships, your academics, or a view of yourself, it makes you think you aren’t good enough for any of that.

“It’s not the illness,” it says, “You feel this way because it’s who you are.”

[adhdedrn]

“Mental illness is like fighting a war where the enemy’s strategy is to convince you that the war isn’t actually happening.”

[disease-danger-darkness-silence]

Me: I can’t get out of bed today, what is wrong with me. I’m so lazy and terrible and I am a huge flake and there has got to be something wrong with me. My brain: There is no war in Ba Sing Se.

[southernsideofme-deactivated201]

[ronpaulproblems]

I’m not crying you’re crying 

[thefiveandahalfminutehallway-de]

Always remember the 9/11 Search and Rescue dogs. 

So many of them became depressed and distraught because they were trained to find live bodies, and when they kept finding remains, their handlers and other rescue workers began to hide in the wreckage so the dogs could do live finds. 

These dogs provided immeasurable help to those that were working the scene, bringing great emotional support just by being around the rescuers. 

[missgingerlee]

I’m not saying I’m sobbing…but if you don’t cry or catch feels something is wrong with you.

[girlcanteach]

a good dog

[samanthainsecondary]

Water works. 

[girlwithalessonplan]

I’m about to make it worse with this poem.  “Searchers” by D. Nurkse, written about the 9/11 rescue dogs:

We gave our dogs a button to sniff,   or a tissue, and they bounded off   confident in their training,   in the power of their senses   to recreate the body,  

but after eighteen hours in rubble   where even steel was pulverized   they curled on themselves   and stared up at us   and in their soft huge eyes   we saw mirrored the longing for death:  

then we had to beg a stranger   to be a victim and crouch   behind a girder, and let the dogs   discover him and tug him   proudly, with suppressed yaps,   back to Command and the rows   of empty triage tables.  

But who will hide from us?   Who will keep digging for us   here in the cloud of ashes?